Oracle ADF Task flows

Taskflows are a very useful feature in Oracle ADF which provide a modular approach for defining control flow in an application. It allows to create application flow graphs which can be tied together to build the complete application. So instead of considering an application as a collection of different JSF pages, in ADF we would consider an application as a collection of different taskflows.

ADF Taskflows come in two forms:

• Bounded Taskflow
• Unbounded Taskflow

Unbounded Taskflow: A set of activities (JSF Pages/views), control flow rules, and managed beans that interact to allow a user to complete a task. An ADF unbounded task flow consists of all activities and control flows in an application that are not included within any bounded task flow.

Bounded Taskflow: A specialized form of task flow that, in contrast to an unbounded task flow, has a single entry point and zero or more exit points. It contains its own set of private control flow rules, activities, and managed beans.

A bounded taskflow:

• has single entry point.
• zero or more exit points.
• may accept input parameters.
• may generate return value.
• has its own memory scope called pageflow scope.

The memory scope of a bounded taskflow called pageflow scope allows the developer to declare java bean classes in that scope making it available/accessible across all the JSF pages within the taskflow.